Alan Watts Reflection

Reading philosophical books tend to be cognitively draining, especially when I find myself contemplating the concepts being explored by our greatest thinkers, as daunting as that can be sometimes. Alan Watts, one of 20th Century’s greatest and most renown philosophers, has had an immensely powerful impact on my life and changed my understanding of day-to-day experiences with literature. I have read several of his books and researched everything I could about him through interviews, articles, speeches, and his own penned literature. It has given me not only a greater understanding of how philosophy is written and understood, but also a deeper understanding of myself through his teachings on self-reflection. His notions and breakdowns of using

Reading his work has taught me to understand how to look at your own writing and art through Jones 2 different colored lenses so to speak. This becomes a useful way of thinking when you try to understand how someone might look and interpret your writing. Being able to look at my writing and analyze it from different viewpoints and worldviews is turned out to be an invaluable method for my writing.

My writing and reading through college improved tremendously after my study by understanding the concept of not only understanding potential outsider’s views on my writing, but knowing myself well enough to be able to use myself as my greatest tool and resource. “That is the Self. That is the real. That art thou!” (Watts, The Way of Zen 119).

Getting to truly know myself and why I do certain things proved to be vastly instrumental in achieving a writing level that I am both happy and satisfied with. I have an immeasurable appreciation for my writing when the writing is fully self-realized. And that realization wouldn’t have been possible had I not dove head first into studying and comprehending what Watts teaches about regardless of whether it was based on the subject I am applying to or